Not Fade Away: The Smithereens' Monument to Persistence

By KEVIN CAHILLANE

Published: October 10, 2004

''IT'S better to burn out than to fade away,'' Neil Young sang, affirming the ''Hope I die before I get old'' mythology that defined a generation raised on rock 'n' roll.

For the Smithereens, though, it's best to keep plugging away. And last month the guitar-heavy New Jersey foursome marked the culmination of nearly a quarter-century together with the release of the two-compact-disc collection ''From Jersey it Came! The Smithereens Anthology'' (Capitol), featuring ''Blood and Roses,'' ''Girl Like You,'' ''Behind the Wall of Sleep'' and 36 other cuts. The band members seem in no hurry to leave the building any time soon.

''We have the same mentality as the old blues singers,'' said the lead guitarist, Jim Babjak, who lives in Manalapan with his wife and three sons. ''You do what you do, until you die with a guitar in your hands.''

This workmanlike approach has served the Smithereens well as their overnight success was actually six years of hard day's nights. The band formed in 1980 when three Carteret High School graduates (class of 1975) and childhood friends (Mr. Babjak, Dennis Diken on drums and Mike Mesaros on bass) met Pat DiNizio, a Scotch Plains singer-songwriter-garbage man. While the band members quickly found their sound and began to write, record and play regularly at Kenny's Castaways in Greenwich Village, the first six years failed to yield a record deal.

''It got to the point where in my mind, and without discussing it with anyone else, I was beginning to entertain the notion of pursuing other things,'' Mr. DiNizio said recently at the kitchen table of his 10-room Victorian farmhouse in Scotch Plains, just blocks from the childhood home he paid respects to in ''House We Used to Live In.'' ''I had already turned 30, and no one was interested in the band.''

Then one day, the phone improbably rang and a deal was brokered with Enigma Records. The Smithereens went into the studio and cut their first album, ''Especially For You,'' which was released a few months later with an unexpected boost. ''Blood and Roses,'' which the band never intended as a single, had been picked for the soundtrack of a movie called ''Dangerously Close.'' While the movie was D.O.A., the song had a life of its own and a champion in the late Scott Muni, then an influential D.J. at WNEW-FM in New York City.

''We were on the most significant rock station in the entire country, in heavy rotation,'' Mr. DiNizio said, ''and when I heard the song on the radio, I wept.''

The album went gold, selling more than 500,000 copies, and the band hit the road for 17 months. Their first major gig was opening for ZZ Top at William and Mary College in Virginia on July 4, 1986. As Mr. DiNizio tells it, the audience was 25,000 strong and drunk with anticipation. Problem was, they were anticipating Ted Nugent, who had canceled. Upon taking the stage, the Smithereens were pelted with insults, shoes, batteries, underwear and gallons of cheap beer for the better part of an hour.

''I was completely soaked from head to toe,'' Mr. DiNizio said. ''But we had the will and experience not to leave that stage. That was the strength of the band. That's been the credo of the band. You never give up. You never give up.''

While their peers had gone on to college and lives of convention, if not quiet desperation, the band fell back on each other. ''It was like a marriage,'' said Mr. Diken, who now lives in Wood-Ridge. ''We would eat, sleep and perform together every night.''

And while their lives were sometimes compromised by life on the bus, the Smithereens carved out a reputation as an exceptional live band of brothers with an authentic blue-collar aesthetic. ''When people come to a Smithereens show, they're essentially looking into a mirror seeing what they might have done, given some simple twist of fate,'' Mr. DiNizio said. ''We look like them, we act like them, we talk like them.''

While the hits grew scarce and the record companies stopped calling in the mid-90's, the Smithereens still have a job to do. They play about 30 dates a year on the festival circuit and at key rock clubs like Irving Plaza in Manhattan, where they will share a bill later this month with Graham Parker, Marshall Crenshaw and Glenn Tilbrook. Fading away is, as yet, not an option. ''Our fans continue to tell us that our music has meaning in their lives,'' Mr. Diken said. ''We'll keep playing until people stop caring.''

Photos: The Smithereens, all New Jersey guys, have a career retrospective out.